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Leonard Cohen Explains Why He Changed Ain’t No Cure For Love From A Theological Proposition To A “Love Song About A Guy Who’d Lost A Girl”

With An Assist From Jennifer Warnes

I had this idea that ‘there ain’t no cure for love’ in every sense of the matter. If you do have [love] it’s a kind of wound, and if you don’t have it it’s worse. And this is what Christ is about: Christ had to die because there ain’t no cure for love. You can’t change this world. And Christ, especially, understood this. So I wrote the whole song on those terms. [Interviewer: What terms?] Theological terms. And then I thought, ‘I’m never gonna get behind this, either. But Jenny [Jennifer Warnes] heard part of the song and she liked it. So I started writing a lyric that would have these ideas somewhere way, way back and no one would have to bother about them but me. It’d just be this love song about a guy who’d lost a girl.

Leonard Cohen

From Leonard Cohen’s Nervous Breakthrough by Mark Rowland, Musician, July 1988. The photo is a gift from Jennifer Warnes.

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A Medical Note On The Death Of Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen’s Lost Album – Songs For Rebecca

Songs For Rebecca, a 1970s Leonard Cohen-John Lissauer project, was abruptly abandoned after several songs were recorded. Find out how it began & ended, which songs were recorded & what happened to them, and listen to a recording of a live performance of those songs: Leonard Cohen’s Lost Album: Songs For Rebecca

Leonard Cohen’s Passionate Version Of “So Long, Marianne”

Leonard Cohen has performed many versions of "So Long, Marianne." The 1993 Oslo concert rendition includes not only a radically different arrangement but also two verses not found on any album. The impact is dramatic.

Leonard Cohen On His Songs

In Memory Of Leonard Cohen

Since Leonard Cohen's death Nov 7, 2016, I've developed a list of selected articles and posts that are especially informative, gracious, interesting, or evocative. The complete list with live links can be found at In Memory Of Leonard Cohen

In Memory Of Marianne Ihlen, Leonard Cohen’s Muse

Marianne Ihlen, immortalized in “So Long, Marianne,” died July 28, 2016. She was a frequent visitor to this site and much beloved. Revealing posts about her and Leonard can be found at

The Cohen-Dylan Interface

The only moment that you can live here comfortably in these absolutely irreconcilable conflicts is in this moment when you embrace it all and you say 'Look, I don’t understand a fucking thing at all – Hallelujah!'

Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen’s Montreal

The best articles about Leonard Cohen’s Montreal homes and haunts as well as videos and a list of pertinent landmarks.